The Medical Thing

I suppose it's time for me to talk about the other medical stuff that is going on.  Last month, I finally got in to see gynecologist. As I blogged at the time, she biopsied my uterus. A week later informed me that I had stage one uterine cancer. This wasn't what I was expecting, not at all. I'd just gone in to see about get an ablation. Cancer was the last thing I was expecting. I suppose it shouldn't have been.

The doctor said I would need a hysterectomy, but felt a couple of things needed to happen before I could have that surgery. One was that I had an Eclipse Vena Cava filter placed, to help prevent blood clots. The other was that I have the lipoma on my arm removed. I'm not sure why she wanted this done, but as I wanted the thing gone, I went with her decision. I've talked about the lipoma surgery in terms of both the benefits and drawbacks from it. It's been great in a lot of ways, but as I'm sitting here with spitting stitches, I have to say it's kind of a mixed bag.

Past that, she referred me to Dr. Choo in Tulsa. Dr. Choo is a gynecologist and an oncologist with 38 years of experience. I met with him on Thursday at the Tulsa Cancer Institute. The interesting thing is that on Monday of last week, he, personally, called me and talked with me for about 45 minutes about my situation and medical history. Due to this, by the time I met with him on Thursday, he already had my surgery scheduled.  

He was very kind to me. I think that has been the best thing about this process. He was kind. He spoke gently to me and made sure that I was processing everything that was happening. That is to say, I was processing it as much as I can. There has been a lot of long moments of shock. There has been a lot of long moments of loss. I never wanted kids, but as a friend pointed out, it's one thing to choose not to have kids and quite another to have the  choice ripped out of you.

Anyway, the surgery is on the 19th of June. I'll need to be at St. John's by 6:30 in the morning, so I'll be going up on the 18th and staying in a hotel overnight. The surgery will be a radical hysterectomy, removing uterus, ovaries, cervix, and some lymph nodes.  It will be done using the da Vinci system, which is a type of robotic assisted surgery where five holes are placed in your abdomen and robot arms cook and gnaw away at your insides. When everything is cut loose from your body, it is pushed out through your vagina. As ghastly as this sounds, it is considered the safest way to do a hysterectomy. 

If things go wrong, I may still have to be opened up. If that is the case, I'll be facing the same kind of pain recovery as anyone who has had a c-section and I'll end up in the hospital for several days. If things go well, I should only be in the hospital overnight. Past that, I should be allowed to go home and resume my life. 

Emotionally, I'm doing okay. I went through some time where I was devastated and terrified, but meeting Dr. Choo has helped things a lot. When you're a fat girl, any kind of medical anything is scary, but he assured me I wasn't the biggest patient he'd dealt with and he wasn't worried about working on me.

So in a nutshell, that's what has been going on with me for a while now. Uterine cancer. Major surgery. Expenses. Trepidation. A looming sense of dread. The need to meet new people and talk to them about very personal things. It has been overwhelming at times and very unreal at times. I'm scared and it seems that every minute of my life now has this lurking tension because of all of this. As much as I am hoping the next couple of weeks go by slowly, I'm also hoping they speed by so that I can get this over with, one way or the other.